On the Cross: A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau

that I might marry if they would pay me a sufficient sum, but I would _not_ do so, if they refused me the means to live in a style which befitted my rank. Then they will probably prefer to make a sacrifice which would enable me to marry, thereby giving them the whole property, rather than to compel me, by their avarice, to remain a widow and keep the entire fortune. That would be a capital idea! Do you see how inventive love is?" she said with charming coquetry, expecting his joyful assent. But he turned away with clouded brow--it seemed as though an icy wind had suddenly swept over the whole sunny landscape, transforming everything into a wintry aspect. "Falsehood and deception everywhere--even in the most sacred things. When I hear you speak so, my heart shrinks! So noble a woman as you to stoop to falsehood and deceit, like one of the basest!" The countess stood motionless, with downcast lids, shame and pride were both visible on her brow. Her heart, too, shrank, and an icy chill encompassed it. "And what better proposal would you make?" "None!" said Freyer in a low tone, "for the only one I could suggest you would not accept. It would be to atone for the wrong you have committed, frankly confess how everything happened, and then retire with your husband and child into solitude and live plainly, but honestly. The world would laugh at you, it is true, but the noble-hearted would honor you. I cannot imagine that any moral happiness is to be purchased by falsehood and deceit--there is but one way which leads to God--the way of truth--every other is delusive!" The beautiful woman gazed at him in involuntary admiration. This was the inward majesty by which the lowly man had formerly so awed her; and deeply as he shamed and wounded her, she bowed to this grandeur. Yet she could no longer bear his gaze, she felt humbled before him, her pleasure in his companionship was destroyed. She stood before the man whom she believed so far beneath her, like a common criminal, convicted of the most petty falsehood, the basest treachery. She fairly loathed herself. Where was there anything to efface this brand? Where was the pride which could raise her above this disgrace? In her consciousness of rank? Woe betide her, what would her peers say if they knew her position? Would she not be cast out from every circle? What was there which would again restore her honor? She knew no dignity, no honor save those which the world bestows, and to save them, at any cost and by any means--she sank still lower in her own eyes and those of the poor, but honorable man who had more cause to be ashamed of her than she of him. She must return home, she must again see her palace, her servants, her world, in order to believe that she was still herself, that the ground was still firm under her feet, for everything in and around her was wavering. "Please order the horses to be harnessed!" she said, turning toward the half ruined door through which they had come out of the house. It had indeed grown dull and cold. A pallid autumnal fog was shrouding the forest. It looked doubtful whether it was going to rain or snow. "I have the open carriage--I should like to get home before it rains," she said, apologetically, without looking at him. Freyer courteously opened the heavy ancient iron door. They walked silently along a dark, cold, narrow passage to the door of the boy's room. "I will go and have the horses harnessed," said Freyer, and the countess entered the chamber. She took an absent leave of the child. She did not notice how he trembled at the news that she was going home, she did not hear him plead: "Take me with you!" She comforted him as usual with the promise that she would soon come again, and beckoned Josepha out of the room. The boy gazed after her with the expression of a dying roe, and a few large tears rolled down his pale cheeks. The mother saw it, but she could not remain, her stay here was over for that day. Outside she informed Josepha of the plan of sending her and the child to Italy, but the latter shook her head. "The child needs nothing but its mother," she said, pitilessly, "it longs only for _you_, and if you send it still farther away, it will die." The countess stood as if sentenced. "When you are with him, he revives, and when you have gone, he droops like a flower without the sun!" "Oh Heaven!" moaned the countess, pressing her clasped hands to her brow: "What is to be done!" "If you could take the boy, it would be the best cure. The child need's a mother's love; that would be more beneficial to him than all the travelling in the world. You have no idea how he clings to his mother. It really seems as if you had bewitched him. All day long he wears himself out listening and watching for the roll of the carriage, and when evening comes and the hour that you usually drive up arrives, his little hands are burning with fever from expectation. And then he sees how his father longs for you. A child like him notices everything and, when his father is sad, he is sorrowful, too. 'She is not coming to-day!' he said a short time ago, stroking his father's cheek; he knew perfectly well what troubled him. A delicate little body like his is soon worn out by constant yearning. Every kid, every fawn, cries for its mother. Here in the woods I often hear the young deer, whose mother has been shot, wail and cry all night long, and must not a child who has sense and affection long for its mother? You sit in your beautiful rooms at home and don't hear how up here in this dreary house with us two melancholy people, the poor child asks for the mother who is his all." "Josepha, you will kill me!" The countess clung to the door-post for support, her brain fairly whirled. "No, I shall not kill you, Countess, I only want to prevent your killing the child," said Josepha with flaming eyes. "Do you suppose that, if I could supply a mother's place to the boy, I would beg you for what is every child's right, and which every mother who has a mother's heart in her breast would give of her own accord? Certainly not. I would _steal_ the child's heart, which you are starving--ere I would give you one kind word, and you might beg in vain for your son's love, as I now beseech his mother's for him. But the poor little fellow knows very well who his mother is, and no matter what I do--he will not accept me! That is why I tell you just how matters are. Do what you choose with me--I no longer fear anything--if the child cannot be saved I am done with the world! You know me--and know that I set no value on life. You have made it no dearer to me than it was when we first met." Just at that moment the door opened and a small white figure appeared. The boy had heard Josepha's passionate tone and came to his mother's assistance: "Mamma, my dear mamma in Heaven, what is she doing to you? She shan't hurt you. Wicked mamma Josepha, that's why I don't like you, you are always scolding the beautiful, kind lady." He threw his little arm around his mother's neck, as if to protect her. "Oh, you angel!" cried the countess, lifting him in her arms to press him to her heart. The rattle of wheels was heard outside--the countess' four horses were coming. To keep the fiery animals waiting was impossible. Freyer hastily announced the carriage, the horses were very unruly that day. The countess gave the boy to Josepha's care. Freyer silently helped her into the equipage, everything passed like a flash of lightning for the horses were already starting--one gloomy glace was exchanged between the husband and wife--the farewell of strangers--and away dashed the light vehicle through the autumn mists. The mother fancied she heard her boy weeping as she drove off, and felt as if Josepha had convicted her of the murder of the child. But she would atone for it--some day--soon! It seemed as if a voice within was crying aloud: "My child, my child!" An icy moisture stood in drops upon her brow; was it the sweat of anxiety, or dew? She did not know, she could no longer think, she was sinking under all the anxieties which had pressed upon her that day. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the carriage as if fainting, while the horses rushed swiftly on with their light burden toward their goal. The hours flew past. The equipage drove up to the Wildenau palace, but she was scarcely conscious of it. All sorts of plans and resolutions were whirling through her brain. She was assisted from the carriage and ascended the carpeted marble stairs. Two letters were lying on the table in her boudoir. The prince had been there and left one, a note, which contained only the words: "You will perceive that at the present time you _dare_ not refuse this position. "_The friend who means most kindly_." The other letter, in a large envelope, was an official document. Countess Wildenau had been appointed mistress of ceremonies! CHAPTER XXI. UNACCOUNTABLE. A moment--and a turning point in a life! The countess was "herself" again, as she called it. "Thank God!" The Ammergau episode--with all its tragic consequences--belonged to the past. To-day, under the emotional impressions and external circumstances at that luckless castle, where everything conspired against her, she had thought seriously of breaking with her traditions and the necessities of life, faced the thought of poverty and shame so boldly that this appointment to the highest position at court saved her from the gulf of ruin. Stopped at the last moment, tottering, giddy, the startled woman sought to find a firm footing once more. She felt like a suicide, who is not really in earnest, and rejoices when some one prevents his design. She stood holding the document in her hand. This was truth, reality, the necessity for self-destruction was imagination. The disgrace whose brand she already felt upon her brow could no longer approach her! She set her foot upon the shaggy skin of a lion--the earth did not yet reel beneath her. She pressed her burning brow against a slender marble column--this, too, was still firm! She passed her slender fingers over the silk plush of the divan on which she reclined and rejoiced that it was still hers. Her eye, intoxicated with beauty, wandered over the hundreds of art-treasures, pictures and statues from every land with which she had adorned her rooms--nothing was lacking. Upon a pedestal stood the Apollo Belvedere, whose pure marble glowed warmly in a sunbeam shining through red curtains, as if real blood were circulating in the stone. The wondrous face smiled in divine repose upon the motley array, which the art and industry of centuries had garnered here. The past and the present here closed their bewitching chain. Yonder stood a Venus de Milo, revealing to the charming owner the majesty of her own beauty. In a corner filled with flowers, a bathing nymph, by a modern master, timidly concealed herself. In a Gothic niche a dying Christ closed his eyes to the splendor of the world and the senses. It was a Christ after the manner of Gabriel Max, which opened and shut its eyes. Not far away the portrait of the countess, painted with the genius of Lenbach stood forth from the dark frame--the type of a drawing-room blossom. Clad in a soft white robe of Oriental stuff embroidered with gold, heavy enough to cling closely to the figure--flight enough to float away so far as to reveal all that fashion and propriety permitted to be seen of the beauty of a wonderful neck and arm. And, as Lenbach paints not only the outward form but the inward nature, a tinge of melancholy, of yearning and thoughtfulness